辛德拉/背景故事

Born with immense magical potential, Syndra loves nothing more than exercising the incredible power at her command. With each passing day, her mastery of magical force grows more potent and devastating. Refusing any notion of balance or restraint, Syndra wants only to retain control of her power, even if it means annihilating the authorities that seek to stop her.

Throughout her youth in Ionia, Syndra's reckless use of magic terrified the elders of her village. They took her to a remote temple, leaving her in the care of an old mage. To Syndra's delight, the mage explained that the temple was a school -- a place where she could develop her talents under his guidance. Though she learned much during her time there, Syndra no longer felt her power growing as it had in her youth. Her frustration grew, and she finally confronted her mentor, demanding an explanation. He revealed that he had dampened Syndra's magic, hoping to help her learn control and restraint. Accusing him of betrayal, she advanced on the mage, commanding him to lift the spell that was holding her back. He backed away, telling her that if she couldn't control herself, he would be forced to nullify Syndra's magic completely. Furious, she summoned her power and dashed the old man against the walls. With her mentor dead, Syndra felt the rush of her unbounded potential for the first time in years. Though she had won her freedom, she refused to return to the society that had tried to steal her gift. Instead, Syndra decided to claim her former prison as a stronghold. Pushing the boundaries of her magic, she tore the structure from its foundations and raised it into the sky. Free to delve further into her art, Syndra now aims to grow powerful enough to destroy the weak, foolish leaders of Ionia -- and anyone else who would dare shackle her greatness.

In addition to Rengar, we'll have another upcoming champion available for play at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. After the Pridestalker joins the League, Syndra, the Dark Sovereign, will descend upon the Fields of Justice in the following patch. A magical prodigy, Syndra conjures powerful dark spheres, and even wields enemy minions and monsters as weapons. Here's the full rundown of her abilities:

Second Cast: Throw a grasped dark sphere or enemy at a target area. Enemies struck by the projectile take magic damage and are slowed.

Scatter the Weak: Deals magic damage in a cone and knocks enemies away based on how close they are to Syndra. Dark spheres within the area of effect are also knocked back, dealing magic damage and stunning enemies in their path.

Unleashed Power (Ultimate): Draws upon Syndra's full cataclysmic power, harnessing all active dark spheres to deal additional magic damage to an enemy champion.

Syndra's kit revolves around the manipulation of short-duration globes left behind by Dark Sphere. While the function of Dark Sphere is very simple on the surface, proper sphere management can be the difference between success and failure with Syndra. Each of her abilities can be used on its own in a pinch, but good sphere placement ensures that Syndra always has the ammunition she needs to throw projectiles with Force of Will, and creates new firing angles for globes launched with Scatter the Weak.

While it might be tempting to snatch up a defenseless minion and use it as a projectile, Syndra's Force of Will ability really shins when it's used in conjunction with dark spheres. Syndra can use Force of Will to reposition these globes for a successful shot with Scatter the Weak while Dark Sphere is on cooldown, or to extend the duration of a sphere that's about to expire in order to build up ammunition on the battlefield. Ultimately, keeping your sphere count high in this manner will allow you to dictate the course of a battle by threatening a large area.

The importance of managing your dark spheres is most keenly illustrated by Syndra's ultimate ability, Unleashed Power. The increased damage granted by each active sphere can transform this ability from high-damage nuke into a cataclysmic attack. Good planning and strategic dark sphere placement can make Syndra an intimidating opponent to face in mid lane.

* Syndra's ability to clear minion waves from long range and put out a ton of burst damage got to be a bit much when combined with her substantial complement of crowd control abilities. Ultimately, we decided that the slow from Force of Will combined with the stun and knockback of Scatter the Weak gave her a problematic amount of disruption potential for the amount of damage she was doing. To solve this, we lowered the base slow on Force of Will and tweaked the added effect from her passive. Instead of knocking opponents into the air, you’ll now get an increase in your slow’s duration when Force of Will reaches Rank 5.

There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding the login music for Diana, Scorn of the Moon. With so much interest in this particular piece of music, we decided it was time to have a word with our resident Composer, Christian “Praeco” Linke to find out what inspired Diana’s theme, along with what he has in store for Syndra and future compositions.